WeTried Translations

Translator: ZEROSUGAR

Editor: Abstract

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◈ Regression is Too Much

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Chapter 249

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The regressor gets lost (3)

<Floor 25>
-Defeat the 'King of the Maze' and escape.
-Poison has spread throughout Floor 25. You may not feel major symptoms at first, but moving will become harder over time. Ordinary people last about one hour. Climbers lose their lives within 2 to 3 hours. Please be careful.

"..."

After regressing and returning to the starting point, I dropped to the floor and sank into thought. I decided to spend this cycle doing nothing but thinking things through.

My head was a complete mess.

"Why is there a Minotaur...?"

The Minotaur that appeared in the tutorial under the alias "Demon of the Labyrinth."

I could still vividly remember the Goblin Shaman giving up his life to seal that bastard. The stage had been designed so that once the boss, the Goblin Shaman, died and the escape portal opened, the hidden boss Minotaur would run wild and slaughter everyone left behind.

Then again, Floor 25 was also a maze, and in fiction, terrifying monsters from early arcs showing up again later was a classic trope.

If the Minotaur had shown up normally, I would have accepted it without question.

I would have beaten it, nodded to myself, and thought, So I really have gotten this strong. None of my effort was meaningless.

After that, I would have burned off some anger at the archangels, cleared Floor 25, and had a tearful reunion with Ji-won.

Or maybe not? If I fought it now, would I win? I would only know if I tried.

Anyway, the reason I was this stunned was simple.

The Minotaur I saw earlier was not in a normal state.

Why had it been slowly crawling up from the floor? Why did it only poke out its head, then awkwardly avoid my eyes? What was that Black Space?

First of all, the Black Space I entered right before regressing clearly was not an area players were meant to enter. If it were normal, it made no sense for it to be completely empty like that. Also, thick wind carrying poison kept pouring out of it, so the source of the poison had to be that black space too.

"My head hurts."

The problem was that I could not figure out anything beyond that.

The Black Space made poison, and the Minotaur was crawling out of it, sure. So what was I supposed to do with that? I could not see anything in there anyway, and it was full of poison. Even if I went back, there was not much I could do.

At best, kill the Minotaur?

"But that isn't urgent."

I had reached the Black Space at around the 20-minute mark. I could not survive more than 20 minutes inside this maze anyway.

And at the 20-minute mark, the Minotaur had only managed to stick its head out. No matter how many times I repeated this floor, I would never have to fight it directly. It would take at least two hours for its whole body to come out, and I could not last two hours in this maze in the first place.

I still planned to kill it at least once, in case the Minotaur was the King of the Maze or tied to a hidden achievement.

Still, that could wait.

"Then are labyrinth and maze different? Could the Demon of the Labyrinth be the King of the Maze?"

For the next cycle, it would be better to take the standard route. Go left at the fork, gather enough information, then decide again.

"Okay."

After organizing my thoughts, I lightly bit my cheek.

[You have taken damage.]

[Returning to the moment of first entry on Floor 25.]

My memory was not incredible, but it was not so bad that I would forget a path I had just taken.

"Straight. Left. Straight. Right."

I marched through the maze at a fast pace. Forget focusing on mana, I just focused on walking, and before even a minute passed, I reached the spot where the white goblin was.

"Keeek!"

I sent the goblin off in one clean move. Then left again. Straight. Right.

Anyone watching would have thought I was speedrunning. I moved that smoothly. Walking fast while focusing on mana made my breathing a little rougher, and that increased mana consumption slightly, but I was moving so much faster that the increase felt trivial.

"Back here again."

I reached the previous fork in five minutes. If I got a little more used to the Mana Filter, I could probably run. Then I could get here in under three minutes. Well, that was for later.

"From here..."

If I went right at this fork, I would reach the Black Space where the Minotaur was. If I went now, maybe only the horns and upper part of its head would be out. A few deep thrusts, and it would die on the spot.

Still, I had already decided to go left this cycle.

I carefully observed my surroundings and headed left.

Left. Right. Straight. Straight again. Left. Straight. Right.

I pieced together the clues the maze gave me and kept choosing only the correct path, and around ten more minutes later...

"Oh."

A massive wooden door with an old-fashioned design blocked my way. Fifteen minutes had passed since I regressed, and I only had about five minutes of mana left.

In the next cycle, once the route became familiar, I should be able to get here in ten minutes total. If I ran, around five. Being able to memorize the path was a huge advantage.

"Let's go."

I let out a long breath, then shoved the wooden door open with force. The heavy door swung open with a deep thud.

"...?"

My eyes widened, and at the same time, I took in a flood of information.

A large room, roughly ten meters by ten meters. Some decoration hanging carelessly on the wall. Vines grown over it. A red carpet that did not fit the maze at all. A long banquet table. Corroded golden tableware. Old wooden chairs. Dirt pellets rolling across the carpet. Dust.

My gaze followed the long table all the way down. Far ahead, in the seat of honor, I saw a figure.

A middle-aged man with pale skin sat on what must once have been a splendid throne, now faded. He wore a tunic that looked expensive, and a crown on his head. His beard was long and well-kept, and the tops of his ears were longer than a normal human's.

"..."

The middle-aged man kept his chin propped on his hand as he sat on the throne and looked at me with only his eyes moving.

Earlier, I thought the Minotaur might be the King of the Maze, but now I knew. That man was the King of the Maze. He was wearing a crown, for one thing. He even looked like a king.

So if I killed him, that would be it, right? The status window had clearly said to kill the King of the Maze.

And that man, honestly, did not look very strong. Take away the ears, and he looked like an ordinary person.

I did not want to kill a person, but if it was the Tower's mission, I had no choice. Shaking my head, I walked toward the throne and was just about to draw my sword.

"...I do not die easily."

The middle-aged man spoke in a cracked voice. He said he did not die easily.

"...Really?"

Of course, I did not stop walking. It did not sound like a lie, but believing it instantly would be strange too.

"...I, too, long for death."

As if he saw through my doubt, the King of the Maze pulled a dagger from inside his tunic.

-Stab!

He drove it deep into his own temple. Dark red blood streamed down from his head, yet his face did not change at all.

"So, bring me these."

With the dagger still stuck in his head, the King of the Maze twitched his foot. He must have triggered something, because a floor tile in front of me shifted and revealed a hidden scroll.

"This is..."

Drawn on the scroll was a full map of this maze. This room, where the King of the Maze sat, was located exactly at the center of the entire maze.

"Bring the items marked there. Then you can kill me."

The map had five X marks in total. It looked like I needed to gather all of them to kill the King of the Maze.

"...I see."

Only then did I fully understand this floor's concept.

If finding this place where the King of the Maze was had been task one, then task two was to roam the maze and bring back the marked items. These items were spread evenly across the entire maze, so even with an efficient route, it was designed to take a lot of time.

Could a player endure the pressure of poison and gather all of them? Could they keep their sanity intact while searching this maze?

Most of all, at some point, the Minotaur in the Black Space would be released. With that giant monster chasing them, could the player still find every item and return to the center where the King of the Maze was?

The core of this floor was composure. And courage. It was testing whether you could stay calm and keep your reason even when danger was right in your face.

Honestly, I was not worried about staying calm itself. I lacked fear of death, so in most situations I could still make the right call.

What I was truly worried about was this.

"...Can this even be done in 20 minutes?"

No matter how I thought about it, it felt like there was not enough time.

When I kept saying "20 minutes," I meant moving at a normal walking pace without forcing myself. Even if I got used to the Mana Filter and became able to run, gathering every marked item within 20 minutes was basically impossible. Mana consumption would go up too.

"..."

And no matter how I thought about it, something felt off. Hadn't Choi Ji-won cleared this floor in ten minutes? If she sprinted at full speed, maybe she could barely do it within ten minutes.

Still, wasn't that timing way too tight?

As a cool-headed regressor and embodiment of reason, I, Kim Jun-ho, made a simple judgment.

"Hey."

"..."

"Do you have some kind of weakness?"

For this one, I was sure of it.

There had to be a way to clear it besides the straightforward method.

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